Posts tagged with Everyday Adventures

Finally! I made it to ‘City Sculpture Projects 1972‘ just before it closes! I’d not gone out of my way to visit as I’d been reliably informed that it was a bit rubbish, but yesterday I was running some errands and in no great rush so I popped into the Henry Moore Institute for a look. It was a bit rubbish, but it smelled wonderful!

The smelly sculpture is ‘Angle‘ by William Turnbull, a large steel piece of, well, angles. It smells of steel, the smell fills the whole room and it’s divine – if you like the smell of steel, which I do.

‘City Sculpture Projects 1972’ is only on until Sunday 19th February, so if you want to smell ‘Angle’ get there quick!

But… there is another exhibition in gallery 4 until 23rd April – ‘Form Has Behaviour’ by Roy Ascott, which has that delightful old wood smell, being mostly made of old wood. It is in a small gallery with a door so the scent envelops you as you look at the pieces (you can also lean in close to get a sniff, I did and didn’t get chucked out and banned forever.)

That is what I did with my day off yesterday – lunch with friends, errands around town, sniffing art, touched up my roots. A productive day.

Yesterday I went to the art gallery for a look around, only to find it shut while they prepare for a new exhibition. As I was leaving I noticed the information panel for that red thing that’s been outside the Henry Moore Institute for the last few months. You know the thing, this thing:

Yeah, that thing. Of course I’ve seen the thing before, I saw it being installed, I’ve seen it many times, you can’t miss it. It’s a Big Red WTF Thing. But what I’d not done was find out what it is. It’s called ‘Aurora’ by Anthony Caro and it’s part of the Yorkshire Sculpture Triangle. I don’t like it. It’s a big red thing and it’s in the way, but it will be gone by mid October. I like that about it.

Points if you got the Dwarf reference, but this isn’t gazpacho, I can’t make a decent gazpacho, I’ve tried but it comes out as wet salad…

Today’s soup is Creamy Pea! Creamy pea soup is lovely and this is how I make it:

Chop up an onion and a little garlic (I use the frozen garlic puree, just a smidgen).

Sautee the onion and smidgen of garlic in a big pan with a teeny bit of margarine and oil.

Add a tablespoon of flour (I use gluten free and it’s fine), stir and cook for another minute or so.

Make up 1 litre of veg stock and add it sloooowly to the floury onions, stirring as you do so.

Add 200g of frozen peas, bring to the boil and then simmer for five minutesish.

Put a teaspoon of cornflour into a measuring jug, mix with a little soya milk and make up to 100ml.

Add the cornflour soya milk mix to the soup and reheat.

Remove from the heat, season, blend, and scoff!

That’s creamy pea soup and it’s rather delicious. I use non dairy margarine and milk because vegan but it may well work with dairy, can’t see why not. The measurements I’ve used give two me sized portions – I eat a lot. The original recipe was probably ‘serves four’ but stuff that.

But, wait! That’s not all I ate for lunch, no! I also made cashew cheese! Chashew cheese? What’s cashew cheese? Well, it’s a thing that I’ve been seeing on various vegan recipe blogs recently and I decided to try making it today (that’s where the Everyday Adventure comes in, see…), but I didn’t follow any recipe, I did stuff I remembered from various recipes and then I made it Much Better. Here’s how:

Overnight I soaked all the cashews I had – I don’t know how many, 100g, about a cup… maybe? Some cashews.

This morning I drained them and kept the liquid.

To the cashews I added a big scoop of nutritional yeast flakes, a bit of mustard powder, a little lemon juice, a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, a smidgen of garlic puree and some black pepper.

I whizzed all this up with some of the cashew liquid until it was something like cream cheese.

Then I ate it on corncakes with my soup. Corncakes are like ricecakes but made of corn not rice. They are crunchier and less like polystyrene than ricecakes.

It was ok, quite nice, but it could be better…. so I made it better… I FIXED IT WITH MARMITE!! I added a little bit of Marmite to the remaining cashew cheese and blended it again. Then I scoffed it on more corncakes and it was Much Better. Marmite fixes everything.

Marmite Cashew Cheese is good, but it’s not cheese. This is where many people have problems with cheese substitutes – they expect them to be very much like cheese, which they are not. They are more things which can be used where cheese could be used. So, a soft spread on a crunchy thing is nice. Cashew cheese on corncakes is nice, cream cheese on corncakes would also be nice if you eat that sort of thing, they are both nice but different things, see? The benefit of something like this over shop bought cheese substitutes is that the shop bought is full of strange things that aim to make it cheese like, and fail to do so. I’m trying to eat less of such things, so I’ll be making more of this!

Adventures! Adventures! I went on an adventure! A sculptural adventure to see the Paul Neagu: Palpable Sculpture exhibit at the Henry Moore Institute (on until 8th November ’15).

I was a little unsure about this at first. Lots of sketches, mostly of people, and a video of the artist doing something I wasn’t sure what with people sitting around looking stoned. But then I realised that the thing the artist was doing was making a man from bits of cake! A cake man! A! Cake! Man! And the stoned looking people were waiting to eat bits of the cake man! I liked the cake man, mostly the idea of a cake man, the original cake man was made in 1971 so he’ll have gone stale by now.

After cake man the exhibit descended into stuff in boxes, Mr Neagu has a thing for boxes, boxes and pockets. I liked some of the boxes: Human Gamba, Palpable Object -which looks like a spine; and Untitled – which is a box with panels like a tryptych, the middle one all divided up into tiny boxes each with gold mosaic tiles in them. There was also a piece that smelled musty and old and reminded me of my grandad, I think that was Platform for Duchamp.

I liked the pockets too, sort of. It amused me to imagine someone getting on a bus wearing the pocket thing and then trying to find their ticket. Other passengers may be less amused. This is the pocket thing:

So, that is Palpable (and occasionally edible) Sculpture. Overall, I enjoyed it, not the wow most mind blowing sculpture ever, but there were pieces I enjoyed and it made me think, if only of my grandad and annoying people on buses. I’ll give it a four out of ten and think that’s a bit harsh but it wasn’t a five because that’s almost a six and it definitely wasn’t a six so four it will have to be. And then I went to the pub.

Having some time to kill in York I popped into the Tourist Information to find something to do that isn’t walking around the Shambles, because that is nice but it’s been done every time I’ve been to York ever. Now, York Tourist Information is so packed with leaflets you could spend an afternoon in there reading them all, or you could ask the nice lady what there is is to do for a couple of hours that isn’t too expensive because you’ve just spent all your money on cake, and she will tell you that the National Railway Museum is free and you can’t get much cheaper than that so off you toddle to look at some trains.

It should be quite clear that I am not a small boy (if it is not clear I suggest you have a bit of a look around – that lady in her underwear, that’s me) and so have no particular interest in trains. But, the Railway Museum is great! There are lots of trains, as you would expect, many of them quite fancy, like the Queen’s old trains fancy. These trains have sitting rooms and bedrooms and toilets that you’d happily use without even first considering if wetting yourself would really be all that bad, and not only toilets but actual baths! That’s fancy.

There is an arty bit too, and I like arty bits. It’s about train spotting and there are films of trains and one train is really long and very peaceful to sit and watch; I can understand why people like to watch trains.

And there are some very old trains, and some not so old trains, and a Chinese train, and a Japanese bullet train that I know all about from a conversation I once had with a five year old. And I saw the turntable work turning an engine right around.

There are model railways too, which I like not so much for the trains but for the tiny towns they run through, tiny stuff is great.

Weirdly there are also stacks and stacks of not exhibits which you can wander through – signs and crockery and models of things and a surprise horse, I was not expecting to find a horse, and badges and hats and stuff.

I think that’s it, apart from the gift shop and the Thomas The Tank Engine which I think was one of those you put money in and it amuses a child for two minutes then you have to put your life savings in or the child will cry for the rest of the day which you don’t want if you are the person looking after the child that day. The gift shop is not the best bit of the museum which shows how good the museum is.

So, in conclusion, the National Railway Museum is fantastic, even if you aren’t all that into trains! Here’s the link: http://www.nrm.org.uk/. It is very close to York railway station and entry is free (£3 donation suggested, which is well earned!). A totally Stephie Approved day out.

The usual stuffed things, old things, dead things, and that woman telling you to wash your clothes in wee are also there, though the foreign things exhibition is having a revamp – seeing what’s been done to that when it reopens is on my Future Adventure List!

These are really good! I used ground coriander and chilli powder rather than fresh and I added some cumin, because I really like cumin, but otherwise I pretty much followed the recipe. The veg I used was carrot (which I grated along with the potato and onion), sweetcorn, peppers and white cabbage – just what I had in. They are simple to make and the recipe makes loads, I have the rest in the fridge, I’ll be eating pudlas for days!

A good recipe and one I’ll be making again long before Pancake Day 2015!

An adventure for my tummy! Oh, and it was a goooood adventure! I made a pretend omelette! In 13 years of veganism I’ve never attempted a pretend omelette – mainly as during 26 years spent as an omnivore I never attempted to make an egg omelette either, because I don’t like them. So, no omelettes, eggy or otherwise!

It turned out pretty good, probably not very omelettey as it was rather delicious. I used sweetcorn, courgette and a little onion (but I think most veggies would work), and served with salad. Definitely one to try again!

Do you know where I’ve not been recently? That’s right! Space! Today I am going to have an adventure, an adventure in space!

This will be a virtual adventure because I don’t have a space rocket. I know, I know… I’m a whore, and whores earn shitloads of money, so I should have a space rocket, right? Yeah, well I’ve Naughty Listed everyone who has pissed me off ever, and I can be very touchy so I barely have enough for the bus never mind a fucking space rocket. But, I do have YouTube!

And look what I found! The view of Earth from the International Space Station! It’s like being on a plane, only better:

There was also some firework stuff and sculpture stuff and some drawings, but none of them really excited me.

Also exhibited was ‘Spiral’ by Jean Tinguely: http://www.henry-moore.org/hmi/exhibitions/jean-tinguely-one-work, I quite liked this, though it may have hypnotised me into quite liking it, in which case it could have done much better and hypnotised me into absolutely loving it. It is a metal swirly thing that goes round and round. That’s all. It goes round and round for a few minutes, then it stops, then you go and look at other things, then you donate all your money to the Henry Moore Institute… oh… this is a very clever piece!

So, my review of this exhibition – meh… 3/10, if you are passing and have a little spare time it’s worth a look, but not really worth going out of your way for. And whatever you do, don’t look at the swirly thing!